Some Woodpecker Diplomacy

May 17, 1986|By Orange

For the record, those crow-sized birds beating their brains out on Central Florida tree trunks almost certainly are the common pileated woodpeckers, not their ivory-billed cousins. Slightly larger than pileateds and marked with the same black plumage with white stripes down the back and white-tipped wings, ivorybills give out a kent, kent, kent call that resembles the sound produced by the mouthpiece of a clarinet. Pileateds favor a more rattling kuk, kuk, kuk.

More to the point, ivorybills have long been feared to be extinct. In the United States, where they once were common in mature cypress swamps, none has been photographed in the wild since 1941.

That's what makes the recent discovery of two ivorybills in a Cuban forest so exciting. What makes the event politically noteworthy is that one of the sightings was made by an American ornithologist invited to Cuba to help in the search.

In an extraordinary step for a nation with such a troubled economy, the Cuban government has declared the area off-limits to loggers. If the Cuban population of ivorybills can be secured -- a process that could take 10 to 20 years -- ornithologists are hopeful of reintroducing the bird to this nation. Leading sites would include the Panhandle along the Apalachicola River, though experts suggest the bird could thrive in some areas not far north of Orlando. Planning now to bring an ivorybill home to Florida would be a far cry -- or kent, kent, kent -- from normalizing relations with Cuba, but in that prickly business a little woodpecker diplomacy would be a good start.